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Monday, July 31, 2017

Uncorked: Côtes du Rhône

Wine lovers around the country tend to keep their favorite everyday wines on hand, describing their cache as their “house wine.” This summer, as we look towards back yard BBQs, shoreside seafood feasts and fresh salads from the garden, consider a new “summer house wine” – E. Guigal Côtes du RhôneBlanc, Rosé or Rouge.

Priced at $15 and readily available at retailers around the country, the trio of summer sippers are a perfect complement to all of summer’s favorite activities:

·2015 Côtes du Rhône Blanc: Floral and aromatic, this is the perfect white to quench one’s thirst at a seaside picnic. Notes of white flowers, apricot, acacia and white peach invite outdoor sipping in the sun, while the wine’s fresh, aromatic, and complex character make it a great match for a variety of seafood including fish tacos and lobster rolls.

·2016Côtes du Rhône Rosé: A structured, dry rosé with a long finish and intriguing minerality. Bursting with red fruits, this wine evokes the idyllic French afternoon in the countryside. Serve all day long with charcuterie and fresh fruit.

·2013 Côtes du Rhône Rouge: Made in the Northern Rhone style, foregoing a traditional, lighter-style Grenache-based blend for a focus on bold Syrah, Guigal’s Cotes du Rhone Rouge is an especially full bodied, aromatically intense red that works perfectly with BBQ flavors like pulled pork. Chill slightly to enjoy the notes of red berries and spices at the next backyard gathering.

Guigal Côtes du Rhône Blanc 2015

$14.99

WINE

Guigal’s Côtes du Rhône Blanc both sets and steps outside the standard for the appellation and showcases one of the great secrets of the Guigal family: their specialization in the great white Rhonevarieties. While only 2% of the Rhone’s production is white, a full 25% of Guigal’s production is white. This wine is both fresh and rich, with complex aromas and flavors of honeysuckle, pear, and kiwi, and a deep mineral streak. It is a beautiful, seamless wine that represents unbelievable value.

VINEYARD

Since 1991 the Guigals have searched for and encouraged plantings of Viognier for their Cotes du RhoneBlanc, as they have a love story with this grape that was nearly extinct in the middle of the last century. They believe the Viognier adds critical freshness and aromatics to the other varieties. The plantings that go into this wine are on varied soils, primarily sedimentary, limestone and granite.

VINIFICATION

Handled at low temperatures and then fermented 100% in stainless steel tanks at low temperatures. It was held until 9 months after harvest.

TASTING NOTES

A full 25% of Guigal’s production is white. This wine is both fresh and rich, with complex aromas and flavors of honeysuckle, pear, and kiwi, and a deep mineral streak. It is a beautiful, seamless wine that represents unbelievable value.

Guigal Côtes du Rhône 2016 Rosé

SRP: $14.99

WINE

The Guigal family has made serious rosé wines since the 1940s. Their Côtes du Rhône Rosé, like all their Côtes du Rhône wines, is humble in name only. The grapes are specifically grown to make superior rosé wines, and they vinify the grapes in a serious manner. This rosé is not a byproduct of a red wine, and it is not made to achieve a specific color. It is full of flavor, texture, and structure, with an almost radiant color, and is bursting with red fruits, an underlying strong minerality, and the constitution for year-long drinking.

VINEYARD

The soil is alluvial clay-limestone and gravel, and the average age of the vines is 25 years. The blend is made up of Grenache (70%), Cinsault (20%), Syrah (10%). Yields are low, around 2.3 tons per acre. All in all, fairly remarkable for a rosé at this price point.

VINIFICATION

The wine is drawn off the skins (the saigneé method) after a brief maceration and long temperature controlled fermentation in stainless steel tanks.

TASTING NOTES

The 2016 has a wonderful fresh nose of red fruits – raspberry and redcurrant – and citrus. The fruit persists on the palate, in a wonderfully fine and round structure. The balance, complexity and refinement give the wine an overall sense of elegance.

Guigal Côtes du Rhône Rogue 2013

$14.99

WINE

standard for the appellation. The Côtes du Rhône appellation applies to red, white, and rosé wines from vineyards throughout the Rhône Valley, comprising 90% of the region’s production. Quality and style can vary widely. The Guigals select and blend cuvées from over 40 top growers, and their talent lies in the rigorous and exhaustive traveling and tasting they carry out. Ultimately they select only 1% of all wines they taste for their Côtes du Rhône: one lot out of every one hundred. Since the 1998 vintage the wine has been based on Syrah, a Northern Rhône approach to a wine that is almost always Grenache based. This focus produces wines of greater aromatic intensity and structure, though is much more costly to produce given the particularities of growing Syrah in the Southern Rhône. The 2012 is 50% Syrah, 45% Grenache, and 5% Mourvedre. Complex and deceptively ageworthy, Guigal’s Côtes du Rhône Rouge is one of the world’s greatest wine values.

VINEYARD

The soils are varied, consisting mainly sedimentary, limestone and granite soils, with many pebbles and alluvial deposits. The average yield is around 2.1 tons per acre, and the average age of the vines is 35 years.

VINIFICATION

Guigal ages their Côtes du Rhône Rouge for a full two years (minimum) before release, almost unheard of in the Rhône. This expensive process results in a wine of unusual complexity, with a substantial and generous palate. After a long maceration and fermentation, aging takes place in oak foudres for 18 months.

TASTING NOTES

The 2013 Côtes du Rhône, which is scheduled to be bottled in November, is a bigger, richer wine than I remember and has tons of ripe Syrah characteristics. Black olives, smoked earth, pepper and plenty of dark fruit all emerge from this inky-colored, straight-up impressive Côtes du Rhône.”

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